


Backup Plans

by Westgate (Harkpad)



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: First Dates, M/M, Romance, There is also cheese
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-11
Updated: 2017-02-11
Packaged: 2018-09-23 15:29:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9663599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Harkpad/pseuds/Westgate
Summary: Clint is frustrated because he actually took the initiative to ask Phil out on a date, but the universe is conspiring against them. Fortunately, the universe has nothing on Phil Coulson, who has a backup plan, even out in the middle-of-nowhere Ohio.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [JHSC](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JHSC/gifts).



Clint would like to smack whatever deity is in charge of things refusing to line up in his favor for dating Phil. He’d lead with “It took me two years to work up the courage to ask him out to dinner! I had to swallow ten fucking years of self-esteem issues created by an abusive environment!” And then he’d slap them.

Ok, maybe cussing at and smacking a deity of any sort was a bad idea, but he’d listened to his shrinks, thanks. They said he’d have a better shot at getting what he wanted if he actually reached out and asked for it, but apparently the universe disagreed.

“Five tries, Phil,” Clint muttered as he set up his bow and pulled the camouflaged tarp over his body in a damp green field in Ohio. “Two out of country emergencies, one medical emergency, the one thing I refuse to ever bring up again, and now these yahoos have to ruin our current try for a nice date night by giving drug money to AIM like they’re the fucking Sierra Club or something. Since when are drug dealers in need of alien-influenced tech?”

Phil’s voice over the comms was calm and cool and it made Clint’s heart race, like always. “Since said tech is rumored to be an invisibility cloak of some sorts. And if you’ll hush and do this job, I have a backup plan.”

Clint hushed because Phil might smack him if he makes a dumb Harry Potter joke, and because if Phil has a backup plan for their date? Well, that’s worth staying quiet for.

<><><><><><><><><><> 

“Cheese Chalet?” Clint asked as he limped up to the tourist trap-looking building. It was an A-frame building with dark wood beams against white stucco and a sort-of imitation cuckoo clock near the roof. The words “Heini’s Cheese Chalet” were written in that silly medieval font that reminded Clint of the beginning of Disney’s Robin Hood movie, and there was a big sign with the words “Factory Tours Available” splashed across them.

“Just wait,” Phil assured him and he held the door open for Clint.

“This is your backup plan?” Clint stage-whispered as he finally made it up the big ramp to another set of glass doors. He’d just passed a ten-foot mural of Ohio farm country that looked like it had been painted by someone’s grandparent, and now he was stepping into what looked like a gift shop. “You brought us to a gift shop for our first date?”

Phil turned and smirked at Clint. “Just wait. Now come on over this way and I’ll get a basket.” Phil led him away from the gift shop to what looked like a huge grocery-store deli, set up so that you had to line up behind the other tourists and slowly wind your way around the room. Phil turned and thrust a handful of toothpicks into Clint’s palm, and grinned. “I’d avoid the ghost pepper cheese, but everything else is fair game. If you like it, toss a block into the basket. It freezes well.”

Clint’s jaw dropped as he realized that the whole room was one giant line up of bowls filled with tiny cheese cubes, and the toothpicks were so he could taste every single one of them. He had to go back for more toothpicks three times, he did not heed Phil’s advice about the ghost pepper cheese and had to take a quick break to spend a few minutes recovering from it with a bottle of chocolate milk, but then he got to try blueberry cheese, chocolate cheese, and root beer cheese, so he ended up okay. Phil ate just as much minus the ghost pepper cheese, and when they finally emerged after tasting at least forty different kinds of cheese, they had fifteen blocks of cheese in their basket. The cheese was really cheap, so Clint didn’t feel too bad.

Phil dragged Clint over to a floor-to-ceiling glass window behind the tasting area where they stood watching the workers make the cheese right there in front of them for about half an hour. It was kinda weird. After that, Phil forced Clint to wander the gift shop, and they ended up with ten sticks of old-fashioned penny candy, a half a pound of homemade chocolates, and some sort of soup mix they were going to get Jasper to make for them when they got back to SHIELD.

“When’s our flight leave?” Clint asked as he climbed into the car and cracked open his fourth bottle of water – those peppers did kinda linger.

“It’s late, around two in the morning. We have plenty of time for our date,” Phil said as he started the car.

“Wait. That wasn’t the date?” Clint said. Because he’d had a blast at that silly cheese chalet. He’d eaten his weight in cheese samples, picked out candies, and bought Nat, Hill, Jasper and Nick silly souvenirs, and had even managed to slip a souvenir for Phil into his coat pocket. He and Phil had talked the whole time in that easy way Phil had, and Clint was content. If he could squeeze in a short make-out session with Phil before they caught their flight he’d consider it the best first date he’d ever had.

Phil leaned over and pressed a soft kiss to Clint’s cheek. “Nope,” he said, and popped the p in an uncharacteristic way that made Clint’s body thrum. The brush of Phil’s lips against his skin felt electric with its promise, and Clint could only stare at Phil as he put the car in drive and drove away from the house of cheese.

“Where –“ Clint started to ask, but Phil side eyed him with a smirk and Clint shut up. He could be patient.

 “Is this a barn?” He asked a few minutes later. Unless the barn was hiding a romantic B&B or something, Clint didn’t figure he was mistaken, and when he saw a skinny calico cat scurry out from under the barn doors when they pulled up, he guessed he was right.

Phil pulled the car to a stop, popped the trunk, and started to climb out of the car. “We don’t actually have a lot of time, and yes, it’s a barn.”

Clint looked around. It was dusk, probably around seven-thirty, and the barn loomed like something out of a fantasy novel Clint had tried and thrown aside last year. It was almost black wood, two-stories, and it had a small, glassless window carved into the middle of the second story. He turned around and watched as the sun lowered itself down into the tall, swaying grass of what must have been a pasture.

The air smelled like fecund soil and dry straw mixed together, and Clint was hit with a memory of walking the show horses around the outer edge of the colorful orange and yellow circus tents in the summertime, relishing the chance to be alone with the beautiful, strong animals who always seemed glad to see him.

“Clint?” Phil said, his voice gentle. “Are you okay?”

Clint blinked and looked over at him. “It’s beautiful here.” He smiled at Phil and then figured if he really wanted to try dating someone he genuinely adored, he might as well be honest. “Reminds me of the fields Carson’s used to set up in.”

“Yeah?” Phil said, and Clint could hear him trying not to sound curious. Clint doesn’t talk about Carson’s very often.

They headed into the barn as Clint explained. “They used to let us kids walk the horses around the fields to get them exercise sometimes, if we’d been good. It was one of my favorite things to do.”

Phil grinned as he opened the barn door. “Well, you may like this, then.”

Clint stepped into the barn and was met with the stares of six beautiful horses, two gorgeous black ones and four mottled brown, and they neighed a bit when Phil and Clint came in. Clint walked over to one of the gleaming black ones and grinned. “Aren’t you gorgeous?” He held out his hand and then stroked its mane gently. He lost himself a little in the touch of the hair, the smell of the straw, the sound of the shuffling of the horses’ feet until he heard Phil shaking out a blanket behind him.

He turned and Phil was kneeling down, pressing the corners of the blanket into the dirt floor of the barn, and turning to pull a bottle of wine out of the cooler he’d thrown the cheese into earlier. He set out a cutting board and two sharp knives, and pulled out a Tupperware bowl of cut up apples and grapes as well. Clint almost lost his breath at the sight.

He patted the horse one more time, and then went over to where Phil was still kneeling and pulled him to his feet. He pulled him close, staring into Phil’s twinkling bright blue eyes, those eyes that could see right through Clint like no one else had ever done before. He didn’t know what to say, but he pulled Phil close and ran his hand down Phil’s cheek, savoring the rough stubble on his jaw, moving to the smooth skin of his neck, and resting his hand against Phil’s navy blue Henley he’d pulled on after the op.

Phil blinked and put his hand possessively on Clint’s neck. “Is this a good setting for our first date?” he asked with a lilt in his voice that Clint had come to have as a goal whenever they were alone.

Clint just leaned in and pressed their lips together, let the joy and contentment and safe feelings he was flooded with pour into the kiss. He pulled their bodies even closer, so he could wrap his arms around Phil’s shoulders, press his hands against his waist, to get a better angle on the kiss.

When they pulled apart, they were both grinning stupidly. “How about some of the best cheese ever, and a glass of wine,” Clint said, and he pulled Phil down to the soft wool blanket. They took turns cutting their favorite of the fifteen cheeses, and Clint felt any remaining tension from the op melt out of his body. They drank the whole bottle of wine, spent a little time with each horse, and retreated back to the blanket to make out like teenagers until the alarm on Phil’s watch beeped to remind them of their flight.

As they packed up their things and went to close the door to the barn, Clint pulled Phil close again and pressed their foreheads together. “I don’t want to scare you or be completely weird or anything,” he said with a small smile, “But this might have been the best night of my life.”

Phil pulled back and then pressed another soft kiss to Clint’s lips. When they were both breathless again, Phil said, “This is only the beginning.”

And Clint figured, after all of their botched attempts at a first date, that if this was just the beginning, they were in for one hell of a good ride.

He wasn’t wrong.                                                                                                                             

**Author's Note:**

> Heini's Cheese Chalet is a real place, and it's amazeballs. If you're ever near Amish Country in Ohio, it's worth a trip.


End file.
